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Watch Me by Jody Gehrman

The world’s started depriving me, year by year, of this particular pleasure: the hungry way boys watch from across classrooms, parties, nightclubs. I’d forgotten how delicious it feels, the way your skin prickles under the heat of their gaze.

Kate Youngblood’s first novel was a success, but now with her second, an abysmal failure, her husband having left her for someone younger, and her writing dried up it’s hard to resist the attentions of Sam Grist, an intense, talented, attractive young student. Surely it’s foolish of her to entertain the idea of welcoming his seduction. What woman, though, wouldn’t be flustered under the intense gaze of his beautiful eyes. He could be a literary gem, she could nurture his raw talent into greatness. The line between professor and student blurs, she finds herself trying to do the right thing, date men her own age as is ‘appropriate’, but fate has other plans.

Not long into the novel, it’s obvious Sam stalks her, has worshipped her since her first novel, clinging to it in times of darkness in his own sad life. Just what happened in his past that torments him still? As the reader gets into his mind, and deeper into the seduction one wonders, is he suffering from erotomania? But… Kate does fall for him, against her will until everything spirals out of control. Sam is too intense, unhinged, when a murder happens, surely he couldn’t possibly have a hand in it? Could he?

Can you really call it obsession, a sickness when Kate herself vacillates between attraction and repulsion? Could she be guilty of leading Sam on? What lonely woman wouldn’t enjoy feeling the youthful freshness of adoration, the tingling giddiness of compliments and someone watching your every move?

Without giving too much away, Sam can feel and see nothing but Kate, he is consumed with a hunger and ‘love’ for her. He knows she is his fate, they are destined to live the life of artists (writers) in New York, it’s just a matter of pulling her out of her funk, changing her mind about the quiet, dull life she has fallen into as if like a trap. She just needs convincing! If Sam needs to do something about other competitors for her affections, so what? All is fair in love and war when your very destiny is on the line! Kate knows this can’t happen, and if she flirts with her desires, she must remain in control. But who can control a man who can’t even control himself?